I include the question mark just because it&rsquo;s one of those stories that sounds too outrageous to be true. But I have to admit, it seems like it's true:

A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called "three illegal reservoirs" on his property, and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

. . . .

According to Oregon water laws, all water is publicly owned. Therefore, anyone who wants to store any type of water on their property must first obtain a permit from state water managers.

I am not even going to get into how stupid these laws are. I did however read on a different forum that Colorado has amended the law to allow private citizens(non commercial) to harvest rainwater. I have not looked into it for cold hard facts.

Yeah, if you read the whole story, it sounds like the dispute just might be about whether he's damming something that may or may not be a tributary to the river which provides water to the city of Medford.

Water rights laws, contracts, agreements, etc tend to be very old and arcane, and the disputes over their interpretation have provided employment for generations of lawyers.

collecting rain water running off your roof is one thing...daming a stream, even a seasonal stream is another...building a dam and creating a small lake , yet another. there are a bunch of regs for each, and sometimes they make no sense. \for example..here in VA..if you want to build an earthen dam to create a small lake for swimming, fishing, and recreation, it takes several years, studies, hearings, saftyn studies and enviromental analysis..........but if you want to build an earthen dam to create a small lake for watering your cattle, a simple county premit costing $50 is all that is needed.guess the moral of the story is if you want to build a dam and have a lake, buy a cow

The book also details how corrupt law enforcement and judiciary in Oregon used the justice system to extort moonshiners operating in their area. Of course, now the competition from corrupt environmentalists is so extreme that dirty law enforcement personnel don't have any chance at serious money. I expect that this guy was too loud and too rich to avoid attention from the environmental bar in Oregon.